people in the cheaper seats know the kind of thing they're up against.)

Then the man steps across the stage and presses a button. A bell rings.
Even before it has finished ringing, nay, just before it begins to ring,
a cardboard door swings aside and a valet enters. You can tell he is a
valet because he is dressed in the usual home dress of a stage valet.

He says, "Did you ring, Sir John?"

There is a rustle of programs all over the house. You can hear a buzz of
voices say, "He's Sir John Trevor." They're all on to him.

When the valet says, "Did you ring, Sir John," he ought to answer, "No,
I merely knocked the bell over to see how it would sound," but he misses
it and doesn't say it.

"Has her ladyship come home?"

"Yes, Sir John."

"Has any one been here?"

"Mr. Harding, Sir John."

"Any one else?"

"No, Sir John."

"Very good."

The valet bows and goes out of the cardboard door, and everybody in the
theater, or at least everybody in the seats worth over a dollar, knows
that there's something strange in the relations of Lady Cicely Trevor
and Mr. Harding. You notice--Mr. Harding was there and no one else was
there. That's enough in a problem play.

The double door at the back of the stage, used only by the principal
characters, is opened and Lady Cicely Trevor enters. She is young and
very beautiful, and wears a droopy hat and long slinky clothes which she
drags across the stage. She throws down her feather hat and her crepe de
what-you-call-it boa on the boa stand. Later on the valet comes in and
gathers them up. He is always gathering up things like this on the
stage--hats and boas and walking sticks thrown away by the actors,--but
nobody notices him. They are his perquisites.

Sir John says to Lady Cicely, "Shall I ring for tea?"

And Lady Cicely says, "Thanks. No," in a weary tone.

This shows that they are the kind of people who can have tea at any
time. All through a problem play it is understood that any of the
characters may ring for tea and get it. Tea in a problem play is the
same as whisky in a melodrama.

Then there ensues a dialogue to this effect: Sir John asks Lady Cicely
if she has been out. He might almost have guessed it from her coming in
in a hat and cloak, but Sir John is an English baronet.

Lady Cicely says, "Yes, the usual round," and distributes a few details
about Duchesses and Princesses, for the general good of the audience.

Then Lady Cicely says to Sir John, "Yo